


Those Who Speak

by taispeantas_laethuil



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Qunari Feels, Qunlat, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:05:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7108198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taispeantas_laethuil/pseuds/taispeantas_laethuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tamassrans receive reports about their past charges. The Bull's Tama is no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Who Speak

It was her Ashkaari’s twelfth birthday exactly when she filled out his placements forms. The designation ‘Ashkaari’ was not- and could not be- official, and Ashkaari himself did not know the specific date of his birth. All he knew was that at the end of the quarter, he would be old enough to leave her care. He would be old enough to assume his role and serve the Qun, the way he was best suited to do.

The designation on his form was his long-form serial number, used only in important documents such as this: 074-000097-[HT44-RK59]-Q8BM90-001(B28). The people who would come to recruit him when the quarter ended were the besrathari. Ashkaari was to become a Ben-Hassrath agent.

It was a difficult decision to make. Her Ashkaari, so gentle and smart, would perhaps be happier elsewhere, in a more nurturing role. But he was from military stock: long before his talents for helping people and his propensity for saying what was needed to cease an upset rather than what was true had revealed itself, he had been training to fight. The Qun could not afford to waste that training, and had uses for someone who could both fight and lie.

The Qun would demand much of his large body and sharp mind. His tender heart would simply have to wait.

 _It is to be_ , Ashkost thought to herself, and signed the forms.

* * *

It was not a thing which was spoken of in front of those who performed other roles, but when the time for quarterly reviews came, each tamassran not only gave reports on their current imekari, but received them for their past charges. It was good, to get a longitudinal view of her work. It was good, to see how her children grew.

Which was how she knew that her Ashkaari was sixteen when they sent him to Seheron. He had grown large and intimidating, and he learned quickly. There was nothing more for the besrathari to teach him, and so they sent him into the maw of that island.

He was not the first of her charges to be sent to that island, nor the last. It was a guarantee that any of her imekari who were suited for fighting would go there. Still, there is something about it which bothered her.

“Sixteen seems young,” she said, meaning _That place will destroy him and his heart utterly_.

“It is,” Reth said, confirming what she already knew from the reports she received about her other former charges. She was formerly a member of the antaam, and many of her current imekari were from Seheron, sent back to Par Vollen to be raised by those who knew how to treat and control the asala-taar.

Imekari with asala-taar. She could only imagine her Ashkaari’s reaction to that.

“Most soldiers are a couple years older- and agents don’t generally get assigned until they’re in their twenties,” Reth continued.

“He must have something special,” Issqun added.

Another thing which was not spoken of in public: tamassrans often formed groups together, discussed problems, and compared strategies. They shared amusing stories about their imekari, and their worries over their futures. Sometimes, they would even discuss past charges.

They were not really supposed to do that. The information they received about the progress of their former imekari was simply supposed to be raw data: it was not their role to worry about those no longer under their care.

Still. They worried, sometimes, despite the confines of their role. And it was better to get it out into the open, than to let it fester until it might become the venak-taar. 

“Regulations state that you need only serve on Seheron for two years,” Issqun consoled her. “Should he survive until then, he can be reassigned. What did you recommend as an alternative?”

“I thought he might make a good tamassran,” she replied.

“Oh no,” said Asaara, softly, pityingly.

“Yes. My thoughts exactly,” she replied.

Taashath was, as always, more laconic about it. “You know the saying as well as I, Ashkost: a broken sword is a hundred nails waiting to be made.”

“What are you saying?” Sataam demanded. “That he will be more useful broken?”

“Of course not,” Taashath placated. “Can a thing ever be truly broken if it still has a use?”

“You don’t know what that place is like,” Reth hisses. “It will break him, even if he still functions.”

Taashath sighed, and turned back to Ashkost. “You did not assign him directly to the role of tamassran for a reason.”

“Yes, because the Qun needs a Ben-Hassrath  agent more than it needs another tamassran,” Ashkost rejoined. “He is suited to the role of tamassran, but he can do the Ben-Hassrath’s work when many can’t.”

“And the besrathari saw that. They would not send him into battle needlessly.”

Reth frowned. Sataam all but spat. Issqun had gone blank-faced: she, too, fought on Seheron, though not as part of the Antaam. She’d been Hissrad, once, as her Ashkaari was now.

“He can still find a role when he is finished with the kabethari,” Taashath continued. “You don’t need to concern yourself with it.”

“I hear you,” Ashkost replied.

She did not agree, not in her heart of hearts, but that did not matter. Issqun might be hornless and still speak of her Ben-Hassrath days, but it was Taashath who would inform upon them should they cross a line. It was one of those things which was understood without being said.

* * *

Two years later, she received her quarterly notices. Ashkaari was in there, as Hissrad Q8BM90. He was still on Seheron.

She read his file carefully. He superiors thought highly of him. His subordinates thought he was holding the island together, single-handedly. It was obvious why his duties on Seheron had been extended.

Still. She could not help her concern.

“I’ve never heard of anyone serving on Seheron for longer than five years,” Issqun consoled her. “He can’t be there for very much longer.”

“Five years?” Asala asked, horrified. She was the youngest of their group: the eldest of her charges had been sent to Seheron in the third quarter of last year. She’d gotten her first notices of death in the quarter after that. 

There were many. There always were. For now, that was the way it was, even if they all knew it was not as it was to be.

“I did that,” Reth said. “It was not fun, but it was done.”

“He is serving the Qun, in a way that few could,” Taashath placated. “It is a great honor to do so.”

Sataam huffed angrily.

“Do you disagree?” Taashath asked.

“Of course not,” Sataam said, though it wasn’t clear whether she truly meant it, or simply meant that she would not voice her disagreements openly. “But perhaps we could allow Ashkost a moment for her former charge?”

Taashath sighed, but said nothing, not until Ashkost spoke up.

“And how is your Kaaras-turned-Ashaad, Taashath?”

“Much better, now that he is on dry land,” Taashath reported. “Kont-aar suits him, it seems.”

And that was the end of it.

* * *

But it didn’t end for Ashkaari. He stayed on that island, for three years, then four, then five, then six.

Six. Years. Three times the prescribed amount. She wanted to scream at the clerks who brought her the reports. She did scream, a little, into the palm of her hand, sitting between Sataam and Reth.

“I don’t understand it,” she cried. “He was in enemy hands for almost a month. They cut off fingers. That is sufficient injury for retirement. He should be sent home!”

 “I-” Taashath began.

“Don’t you start,” Sataam hissed. “Don’t you dare start in with your useless vashe-qalab! This is wrong, and you know it!”

“You can’t say that!” Asaara protested, a matter of pure reflex.

“I just did say it,” Sataam pointed out.

“I think,” Issqun interrupted. “That we are infringing upon Ashkost. Perhaps we should allow her time to collect herself?”

There was a murmur of acquiescence: Reth gave her hand one last squeeze before she left Ashkost alone to do as Issqun had suggested.

Things were not going as they ought, she reflected. That was the sticking point.

 If Ashkaari had died on Seheron, perhaps she could accept it as being as it was to be. If he had been tortured, mutilated, and then sent home, she could call it right, be proud that her imekari had grown up so strong and resilient, and be relieved that he was home. She had done so before. She would do so again.

But that was not what happened. Two years had become six, with no end in sight, and though he’d suffered a severe enough injury to warrant it, still he had not returned home.

She had hoped, in her heart of hearts, that he would come home and take up the tamassran mantle, that he would become like Issqun and Reth. Worse still, she had hoped that, perhaps, her Ashkaari might even be given a dormitory to watch over near her own.

That was not how it was. But that was how it was supposed to be, she _knew_ it. Ashkaari was supposed to be able to stop fighting by now. He supposed to be safe.

There was a knock on the door. The knocking came from Issqun.

“There is something I’ve forgotten,” she said.

Ashkost stepped aside to let her in: her hair pins were all in place, and her glasses were tucked into the high pocket of her dress, attached to her collar button by a chain.

“There is something we used to say on Seheron,” she said once the door closed behind her. “We would say that our purpose was to do whatever it was that needed to be done to protect those important to us.”

“What do you mean by telling me this?” Ashkost asked.

“I mean that perhaps your Ashkaari is volunteering to stay,” Issqun said. “Perhaps he is not on Seheron because of the demands of the Qun, but rather because of the demands he makes of himself.”

“Why would he demand that of himself?” Ashkost asked.

“You said he was always good about caring for the younger children. That is why you expected him to become a tamassran by now, is it not?” Issqun had always seen much more of Ashkost- of them all- than she wanted to be shown. “It is possible that he is requesting to stay. That he feels it necessary to stay, for the sake of others.”

Were Taashath here, she would interject to remind her how virtuous that sentiment was- but Issqun had sent Taashath and the others away. There was no buffer between Ashkost and the former Ben-Hassrath agent.

“That is a possibility,” she said. “Still. I wish for him to be safe.”

Issqun squeezed her shoulder. “We all wish for our imekari- past and present- to be safe. But, for now, things are not as they are to be. We can only choose to work towards making it so.”

Ashkost nodded and smiled, and privately wished that someone under the Vidasala would recognize what a miracle Ashkaari’s survival was and call an end to it.

* * *

Ashkaari turned himself in for reeducation voluntarily, so Ashkost did not receive any special notice of it. She was merely treated to the sight of an unexpected set of forms filled out by the clerks at the viddathlok when she did the last quarterly review before what would have been Ashkaari’s ninth year on Seheron passed.

Her Ashkaari was home, and had delivered himself straight into the hands of the vidathiss. He was there now. 

“The vidathiss know their work,” Issqun assured her. “They will fix whatever is broken.”

“It is to your credit, that he turned himself in before anyone could get hurt,” Taashath said.

“I hope my charges will grow up to make the same decision, should the choice come before them,” Asaara said.

Reth said nothing, and left one of her horn caps behind. She returned for it after the call for imekari to be asleep went up around the dormitories, bringing a small kettle of hot, pepper-laden cocoa for them to share.

“I’ve placed my imekari in the care of my evakari,” she explained. “Just in case I should miss the call for the curfew for adults.”

The call went up while Ashkost was still working on Reth’s braids. When the day dawned and the criers began rousing the city, Reth slipped out of her bed, her hair in slight disarray, and went back to her own dormitory.

Sataam said nothing either. That was probably because Sataam had been turned into the vidathiss in the middle of the second quarter of last year, and was no longer with them. Unlike Ashkaari, she had not gone willingly, and even if she came out of the viddathlok with her role intact, she would have been given a new dormitory on another part of the island. The tamassran who had taken over the care of her imekari was a human woman, born to the Qun rather than a convert, who they called Anashi.

She was, objectively speaking, a pleasant enough person. She and Asaara got along well. But in her heart of hearts, she knew that she would never consider Anashi kadan. She was not sure she could call any of them kadan anymore, save for Reth, perhaps.

They didn’t know who had turned Sataam in, after all.

Taashath was the most obvious candidate, but Taashath had denied it the first time they met after it had happened.

“I know what you must think,” she had told them. “But I did not turn in Sataam. I saw no reason to. Her doubts might have a force the rest of ours lack, but she did not allow them to interfere with her role. I did not do this.”

Ashkost believed her. Had Taashath been the one who had turned Sataam in, she would have been proud, and would have explained to them the rightness of her decision. That left the question of who had done it, however. Was it Issqun, reporting back to her old superiors as though she had never been reassigned from the Ben-Hassrath? Was it Asaara, her youth and inexperience making Sataam’s voiced anger seem to be a bigger threat to the peace of the Qun than it actually was?

Was it Reth? She could not fathom how that could be, but the question still remained, unanswered and unvoiced, joining a multitude of other doubts now festering without a prayer of being lanced.

She could not speak openly in front of those who might have betrayed Sataam, nor her replacement. She, a tamassran, could not speak.

This was not as it was meant to be.


End file.
